Motor City's Elektricity Amps Up With Elation

PONTIAC, MI – (For Immediate Release) – As host to the Memorial Day weekend Movement festival, which draws nearly 100,000 fans from around the world, the Motor City is rapidly becoming one of the nation's premier electronic music hubs. It's a “movement” that gained steam recently when Detroit-area club owner/promoter Amir Daiza launched Elektricity, a new venue focusing exclusively on electronic music. Seeking to build on the city's deepening EDM roots, the club features live appearances by some of the genre's most acclaimed local and international artists.

Daiza planned to make lighting and production the centerpiece of Elektricity's design, giving it the appearance of a festival stage. To create just the right environment to showcase acts like BT and Paul Oakenfold, the club owner called on Michael Meacham of idesign (Miami Beach, FL).

“Basically, what he wanted was a little mini Electric Daisy Carnival-type stage,” said Meacham. “I did some renders, and (Daiza) said, â€˜Let's do it!' We based the whole design around the production. It's more of a black box theater with a lot of production in it.”

Club personnel had already been to an LDI show, where they had purchased some LED video screens, but the overall design and selection of lighting fixtures was Meacham's call. As Elektricity's dramatic signature light, Meacham chose the new Platinum Beam 5R moving head from Elation Professional.

An extreme ACL beam-producing light, the Platinum Beam 5R has the tight narrow beam and ultra brightness of a classic aircraft landing effect. Yet, despite its hugely brilliant, high-impact “searchlight”-type beam, it runs on only 189 watts. That's because it's powered by the advanced MSD Platinum 5R lamp from Philips, an innovation that, in addition to providing much greater energy efficiency, allows manufacturers to make fixtures that are more compact and lightweight. Much smaller than a typical beam moving head, the Platinum Beam 5R weighs just 34.2 lbs./ 15.5 kg, and measures 14.1”L x 13.2”W x 18.5”H/ 358 x 335 x 470mm. It's loaded with professional features and effects, such as 12 dichroic colors, 8 rotating/indexing replaceable gobos, and a Frost Filter that allows it to function as a hybrid wash effect.

The Platinum Beam 5R “is so powerful, it just cuts through everything,” said Meacham. “It's great because you can do all these big beam looks with it. But even though it's such a narrow beam light, it's got so many features that it can be used in multiple ways -- such as split beams, gobos and even frost, which allows it to act as a wash.”

Elektricity purchased sixteen Platinum Beam 5R units in total. Fourteen of units were installed on and around the club's stage, while two are kept as spares. Eight Platinum Beam 5Rs were hung on the downstage truss, and another two were positioned on the DJ riser. The remaining four were placed on deck, with two each at downstage left and downstage right. “The idea was to give it a layered look,” explained Meacham. “You're getting this very layered, immersive, light-coming-from-everywhere effect, especially because the beams are so fast, so powerful and so snappy.”

Complementing the Platinum Beams is another Elation light, the Opti Tri Par, an RGB LED par can equipped with 18 x 3–watt Tri-Color (red, green, blue) LEDs. Meacham installed a total of eight Opti Tri Pars at Elektricity, hanging two of them on the same truss as the Platinum Beams to act as DJ key lights. Another four Opt Tri Pars are mounted on ladders below and “create this really cool chasing effect that outlines the DJ.” Two additional Opti Tri Pars function as straight stage washes.

Also used at the club was a smaller version of the LED par can, the Opti Tri 30, which has 7 x 3-watt Tri-Color RGB LEDs. Twelve Opti Tri 30s were hung underneath the club's mezzanine, where they project down on the dance floor and “do all these chases and cool stuff,” said Meacham.

Early in the design process, Daiza indicated that he wanted to be able to change the club's look every four months so that it would remain interesting to his clientele, “without having to spend a lot of money,” said Meacham. The Platinum Beam 5R has proven to be a great fixture to help facilitate this goal, the designer reported. “Because the Platinum Beams are so powerful, all we have to do is re-position them around and do some cool new groupings with them. This can give the whole stage a new 180-degree-turnaround different look. Plus, with their versatility we can constantly come up with new and creative ways to use them.

“Another thing I love about the Platinum Beam 5R,” added Meacham, “is that it's not an expensive light, yet it's so powerful. When you look at what it costs and how bright it is and all it does, you just have to respect that.”